Fathers, Brothers, Lovers
by sauscony
Summary: A new girlfriend and a telegram turn Wesley's life completely upside down. Rated R for language and a sex scene.


FATHERS, BROTHERS, LOVERS  
By Sauscony 

E-mail: sauscony@forty-two.co.nz  
Rating: R  
Spoilers: Up to the end of season two of _Angel_.  
Summary: A new girlfriend and a telegram turn Wesley's life completely upside down. Rated R for language and a sex scene.   
  
Disclaimer: _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ and _Angel_ characters are copyrighted ©20th Century Fox, Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, UPN and the WB, and are used without permission. No copyright infringment is intended. 

I straightened my tuxedo jacket, shrugging it into place on my shoulders and smoothing it down, and heard the paper in the breast pocket crackle. For a moment I considered pulling it out and dropping it onto the road, leaving it there to flutter across the street and hopefully get run over by a succession of passing cars. But something stopped me. I don't know what; courage possibly, cowardice more likely. Instead I just brushed some non-existent dust off my trousers and started walking up the path. 

The door opened moments before I reached it and there she was, proving she had been watching for me, waiting for me. 

My beautiful Bridget. My big secret. 

She had a tendency to take my breath away every time I saw her, but tonight... Tonight she was magnificent. 

She was wearing a long black dress that clung in all the right places and swished around her ankles in a fall of gauzy chiffon. The only colour was provided by a thick faux pearl choker with a centrepiece of onyx and replica diamonds around her neck and her rich, brown hair, piled high on her head in a style I had never seen her use before. 

"You... you look beautiful," I managed to stutter. "Like totally beautiful," I added without out pausing, and immediately cursed myself for talking like Cordelia. 

Bridget just laughed, gently, and stood on her toes to kiss me on the cheek. A moment later she raised her hand to my face and used her thumb to brush away a smudge of lipstick. 

"You look rather amazing yourself, Wesley," she told me with a smile that turned into a chuckle when I blushed. 

My Bridget. My secret. 

I had never told her what I did for a living. I had never told my friends my family I worked with about Bridget. I wasn't sure exactly why, and I refused to think about it too much in case I didn't like the answer I came up with. Selfishness most likely, or even just plain stupidity. 

Although perhaps it wasn't so strange after all. For the first time, I felt that maybe I finally understood something of Buffy Summers' desperate desire to be normal. She never had been of course; even her death had been on the grand scale, but that had not ever stopped her dreaming. 

I wanted a normal, non-supernatural, relationship with Bridget. I wanted to protect her from the monsters that I knew lurked in the night, from even the knowledge that they existed at all. 

It was my job and the dangers that came with it that had driven Virginia away, and she had known about magic and monsters all her life. I didn't want the same thing to happen again. Losing Virginia had hurt; I rather thought losing Bridget might kill me. 

"A penny for them?" 

I blinked. "Sorry?" 

"You were looking very serious," Bridget told me, her expression curious and her eyes sparkling. "I wondered what you were thinking about." 

"I... ah..." I fumbled for something to say, unwilling to tell the truth, equally unwilling to lie to her any more that I had already in the months we had known each other. 

"I was wondering how I'm the luckiest man on this planet." The words spilled out all by themselves and as I heard myself say them I would have been grateful for the floor to crack open and swallow me whole. Until I saw that Bridget was staring at me with suspiciously bright eyes, a soft blush spreading across her face. 

"By making me the luckiest woman?" she suggested with an embarrassed laugh. She grabbed her coat from behind the door and slipped it on. "Come on, Wes. Take me to the ballgame before we both get so mushy they have to mop us up off the floor in the morning." 

"You mean you want to go to a ballgame?" I asked as she locked the door, doing my best to sound horrified. A moment later I began to worry that maybe she was serious. "I've got tickets to Shakespeare, like we agreed," I said cautiously. "_A Midsummer Night's Dream_." 

She wrapped her arm around mine as we started walking back towards the car. "And The Royal Shakespeare Company on tour and actually performing in LA," she agreed happily. "I was joking, Wesley." 

"I knew that," I said with as much dignity as I could muster, and she had the good grace not to laugh at me. 

Sometimes I think that Fate must have brought Bridget and me together, almost immediately followed by the realisation that surely that must be the height of hubris. That always leads to a quick apology and a swift word of thanks to the Powers That Be for giving me such a miracle. Destinies are for people like Angel and Buffy Summers, not ordinary men like me. And since their destinies tend to involve blood and pain and the end of the world, I choose just to be thankful I've been so lucky. 

I met Bridget by accident. I was visiting a favourite independent bookshop small and a little cluttered and apparently ordinary except for the extensive occult collection in the back room; the collection that Pete, the proprietor, only lets certain, exclusive customers know exists. I walked in, my mind on demons and research, and there she was, looking at me from out of a photocopied poster in the window. 

_Bridget Kelly, renowned historical and romantic author, in store today only, signing her new book "Hamilton House"._

I squeezed in the door and struggled to make my way through a crowd of people, all clutching copies of a glossy new hardcover, along with the occasional, older and more battered paperback. I tried to get a glimpse of the author, but couldn't see anything through the mass of customers. More interested in the copy of _Albesian's Guide to the Nightworld_ that Pete had been tempting me with for weeks, I skirted my way around the crowd and headed for the back of the shop. 

Pete met me halfway and flashed me his typically ironic grin. "Sorry about the hoopla, Wesley. Brid was kind enough to agree to do the signing for me and it turned out a little more popular than I expected. Good for her though. It's time she got the recognition she deserved." He glanced back at the crowd. "I doubt she'll ever be on the best seller's list, but she's good and it's time her following grew some." He turned back to me, the grin still present. "I tell her she should be aiming for Oprah's Book Club. Probably give her even more exposure. Anyway, let's go find that _Albesian_ for you, and we'll have a coffee once the furore subsides." 

The _Albesian_ volume was indeed everything Pete had promised and I paid much too much for it, tucking the receipt carefully in my wallet so that I could later present it to Angel as a business expense. Half an hour later I found myself drinking coffee that could melt a teaspoon in the back office with Pete and Bridget Kelly. 

She wasn't exactly my idea of what an "historical and romantic" author should look like, which was probably something along the lines of short, plump, old and bespectacled. Bridget was younger than me, tall and slim and fashionably dressed, with skin women would probably kill for and a smile that would make men die for her. It was her hair though, that caught my attention most. It was long, falling halfway down her back and spilling over her shoulders to frame her face; a rich, soft brown with a gentle curl. It looked as if it should feel like silk and all I wanted to do, as I sat there and drank Pete's appalling coffee, was to run my fingers through it to discover if I was right. 

I think I fell in love right there and then. 

And even more amazingly, somewhere along the way, as we pursued a tentative courtship, both of us carrying our share of scars and old hurts, she fell in love with me. 

Nearly three months later, I still didn't know exactly what those "scars" of hers might be. I just recognised, as a person with my own collection of old wounds, both emotional and physical, that she had them too. From things she had said and left unsaid - I rather suspected she had been betrayed once, badly and most likely by someone close to her. But I had never pushed it, knowing I would not want her to do that to me. She didn't trust easily and I didn't want to do anything to jeopardize her faith in me, especially since I knew there were things I had failed to be totally honest about. Things like vampires and demons and various other monsters from hell and beyond. 

One day, just a couple of weeks ago, I had begun to wonder if there might be physical scars as well. I caught her running her fingers along her neck, under the camouflaging fall of her hair, the expression on her face and the movement of her hand the same as I sometimes caught myself doing, tracing the line of the scar Faith had left on my shoulder. 

We had kissed and cuddled and held each other close, but we had never done more than that, neither of us yet ready to expose ourselves that much, no matter how much we might wish to. The day would come, and then she would see my scars and I would see hers. And maybe, one day far, far in the future, we might choose to face those other, invisible scars together. 

Maybe. 

Perhaps. 

But not tonight. Tonight was _A Midsummer Night's Dream_. Tonight was enjoying each other's company and maybe waistline-destroying deserts afterwards in a restaurant we had found near the theatre on an earlier occasion. Ominously named _Death by Chocolate_, it had become a favourite haunt, and the subject of the most outrageous excuses we could invent to justify even ordering, let alone eating. 

All around us, people were starting to stream out of the theatre. After the thundering standing ovation as the curtain fell for the last time, Bridget had sat down again. I already knew from previous trips to the movies that she preferred to let the "mob" clear out before leaving herself. She had explained that she had grown up in a small town and she sometimes found the teeming population of LA overwhelming. Since I often felt the same way myself, I was always ready to sit back down and wait with her. 

She leaned over and rested her head against my shoulder with a happy sigh. Then she asked me something totally unexpected. 

"Wesley, do you believe in faeries?" 

I was so surprised I sat up abruptly and had to grab her to stop her head banging against the back of the seat. With my arms around her shoulder I said blankly, "Sorry?" She laughed, her breath brushing against my cheek. "I asked if you believe in faeries." 

"That's what I thought you asked," I admitted. "Disney fairies or Shakespeare fairies?" I asked half-facetiously. 

"Oh, definitely the Shakespeare kind," she said with a chuckle, but her voice was serious. "The Old Folk, the Sidhe, those kind of faeries." 

"The Sidhe," I repeated, struggling to call up memories of the Celtic Mythology section of my Watcher training. 

Bridget nodded. "Look at my name, Wesley. My family is Irish from way back." 

"You believe in fairies?" I said quietly, and it was only half a question. 

"I asked you first," she protested. Then she looked up at me and said simply, "Yes, I do." 

I thought about it. I believed in vampires and demons more than believed, I knew for a fact that they existed. I worked with a vampire, I'd slain my share of demons, even survived my encounter with a Vampire Slayer gone rogue. According to the stories, the Sidhe tended to ignore humanity altogether. They could be tricky and occasionally dangerous, but mostly they tended to be loftily amused by humanity and rarely even developed and affection for certain mortals. Not on the side of evil, but not necessarily bound to the Light. 

But that was all theory. Did I believe they really existed? 

"I don't know," I said slowly. "Maybe. Right now, I don't have reason _not_ to believe." 

Bridget smiled, that brilliant, stunning smile that made my insides melt. "That's good enough." She leaned up to kiss me lightly on the lips. "The play was magic, Wesley. Thank you for bringing me." 

"You're welcome," I said stupidly, but more than willing to return the kiss. 

We pulled apart to see one of the ushers watching us with a smile on her face. I flushed, fumbling for Bridget's coat to cover my embarrassment, and pretended not to see her knowing look as we walked past her out of the auditorium. Bridget, typically, grinned at her and winked. 

Safely out on the street, the crisp night air helped cool my blushes. Bridget slipped her hand into mine, the way she always did, and looked at me seriously. 

"It was just a kiss," she said quietly. "And she probably thought we were cute." She squeezed my fingers. "_I_ think we're cute." 

"I know," I agreed, wishing she would let the subject drop. Which made me all the more surprised when I found myself continuing. "Public displays of affection weren't exactly encouraged in my family. Totally frowned upon in fact." 

We were passing under a streetlight and I looked down at her to see a strange, unreadable expression cross her face. 

"Oh," she said softly, and I was astounded by the complete understanding in that one little not-word. Her hand left mine and she snaked her arm around my waist. "I guess I've just had longer to get over my pa's childhood strictures than you have, yours." 

I stopped walking, staring down at her and not understanding. "Bridget?" 

She shook her head. "Maybe later." 

I didn't push it. Her statement didn't make sense and the scholarly part of me was dying of curiosity, but I wasn't going to bully her about it. Instead, I just suggested simply, "Dessert?" 

Bridget raised a hand to her hair as if to brush it behind her ear a gesture she always began and never finished, one I was now familiar with and loved to watch and seemed rather surprised to discover everything was still smoothly pulled into the chignon at the back of her head. It was only then that I suddenly realised that his was the first time since I had met her that I had _ever_ seen her with her hair up. Something in my gut told me this was highly significant, but I didn't have a clue why it might be so and I didn't dare ask. 

She let her hand fall again, sliding her fingers across the choker as her hand dropped back to her side. "Actually," she said shyly, "I had another idea." She opened her purse and started rummaging through it. Since it was a tiny, stylish creation barely bigger than my outstretched hand, it was amazing how long it took her to find whatever it was she was looking for. 

Finally, she held something out to me. I took it automatically, wondering what it was. 

"It's a key," I said stupidly. 

Bridget half laughed, the sound a little uncertain. "Look closer." 

It wasn't just a key. It was a key to a room in one of LA's more prestigious hotels. I'd only been there once, on an abortive case when Cordelia had been trying to find us a rich clients. That would have been more than a year ago but places like that don't change. Sometimes not even in centuries. They just quietly upscale to modern conveniences without ever letting you realise they have done so. 

"Only if you want to," Bridget said in a soft voice, and I looked away from the key in my palm to see her watching me, her eyes wide and vulnerable. "It just felt like time, but if you don't want to…" 

I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her against my chest, heedless of what my father would have said and done if he could see me. "Of course I want to," I whispered into her hair, dropping a kiss on the top of her head. "With you, how could I not…?" 

The room was sumptuous. More than sumptuous in fact, and I wondered what Bridget must be paying for it. And how I was going to contribute out of my _Angel Investigations_ salary. 

The furniture was either genuinely antique or such high-class replicas it was probably worth the same kind of money. The fittings were tasteful, discrete and expensive. It rather reminded me of my grandmother's house, where we had never been allowed to touch anything. Nanny had followed along behind us with an eagle's eye and a cleaning cloth to prevent accidents and wipe away small finger marks and we had kept our hands firmly in our pockets and tried to be invisible. I found I had a sudden urge to bounce on the bed. 

"What?" Bridget asked suddenly, and I looked back to see her watching me with an small smile. 

"Sorry?" 

"You had the most wicked look on your face. What?" 

With a partly embarrassed, partly amused smile, I admitted, "I was thinking about jumping on the bed." 

Before I could react, she had kicked off her shoes, crossed the room and was climbing onto the enormous bed. The gold brocade bedspread lost its perfect smoothness under her weight, but the mattress didn't dip at all. 

"It's _good_," Bridget pronounced after a couple of trial bounces. "Come on, Wesley! Come and join me." 

She held out an inviting hand and, not quite believing I was actually doing this, I found myself undoing my shoes laces and crossing the room in my socks to join her. 

She was right. It was good. Bridget hauled me onto the bed beside her and, still holding both my hands in hers, started jumping again. Unless I wanted to have my arms jiggled out of their sockets, I had not choice by to join in. Hesitant at first, I tried a little bounce, little more than rocking on the balls of my feet. The mattress sank a fraction, then tossed me up again and I realised I was grinning. 

"That's my boy," Bridget encouraged. "Jump. The bed can take it." 

So I jumped. Sure enough, the bed sank and bounced like a trampoline and we started jumping together, still holding hands and beginning to laugh. We jumped in time with each other, then tried alternating our bounces. Bridget laughed until she had tears in her eyes, and said through her giggles that she was tempted to try somersaults. The bed was certainly large enough larger than most real trampolines but I wasn't so sure about the springs. Or how her beautiful dress would survive the experience. 

My thoughts must have shown on my face because she laughed even harder and promised she wouldn't. I'd had to undo the buttons on my jacket to allow me to bounce unhindered and it flapped about my sides with each jump I made. Bridget's hair was falling out of its stylish chignon, pins spilling onto the bedspread and tendrils of soft, brown hair falling down her shoulders and flipping across her face each time she jumped. She was laughing with delight and I had never seen her look more amazing or more beautiful. 

We bounced until we were both giddy and giggling, then collapsed in a breathless, tangled heap, still laughing. 

Bridget disentangled herself from me just enough to settle herself cross-legged on the bed. Her dress pooled around her waist and she had her stocking-clad feet tucked neatly under her. She leaned forward and wrapped her arms around me, her hair still plastered over her face, that child's grin making my heart melt. 

She rested her head against my shoulder and said simply, "I love you, Wesley." 

My heart must have stopped for at least a minute. I know it must, because I felt it burst back into life with a force that hurt. I opened my mouth to answer, to tell her the same, but nothing came out but a strangled mutter. Contrary to what I would have expected, it was not Angel nor Cordelia, not a soul-reading green demon nor even my father who could reduce me to strangled, adolescent speechlessness. It was Bridget saying those four words that did it. 

"It's all right," she said gently, as if she knew what was in my mind and understood. If she did, she was doing better than I was just then. "You don't have to say it back." 

"I... Bridget, I..." I stuttered furiously, but I was determined to get _something_ out. "I... I _want_ to," I said desperately. "I just..." 

She looked at me thoughtfully, a wisdom way beyond her years in her eyes. "Who hurt you, love?" she asked in that same gentle voice, and somehow I knew it was a rhetorical question. One I didn't have to answer unless I was ready. 

I just shook my head miserably and started to slide my way across the enormous bed to the edge. I'd done it again, ruined everything, and this time the 'everything' was the most precious chance I had ever had. 

Bridget stopped me with a hand on my shoulder, forcing me to turn back and face her. 

"Wesley," she said softly and very seriously. "There's something I need to show you if we're going to… to… get naked together." She looked up, her face hopeful and shy, both at the same time. "Are we going to get naked together?" 

I couldn't believe her. Perhaps I hadn't ruined this after all. And I suddenly knew without the slightest doubt that, despite my bumbling and my fear, despite her caution and vulnerability, we both wanted this, wanted each other. 

"I would very much like to 'get naked' with you," I answered equally seriously. "If you still want me. But I'm not going to push you about it." 

She gave me an incredulous look. "Of course I want you. Why do you think I paid a fortune for this room? You're not pushing. I just don't usually let people see." 

I was confused again. "See what?" 

She didn't answer with words. Instead, she pulled the last of the pins from her hair and reached back to undo the pearl choker. She leaned over and dropped it on the floor, not caring where it fell, and turned back to me. She pulled her hair back over one shoulder, looked up at me and waited. 

It took me a while to see. Her neck was scarred, badly, all up the right side, constantly hidden under her hair or behind high necked shirts and sweaters. I looked back at her face to see her watching me, fear in her eyes. 

"I..." She hesitated. "I was in an accident when I was a kid." Her eyes dropped. "I'm not really beautiful and perfect like you think, Wesley." 

For a moment, I couldn't believe what she had just said. And the way she expected rejection for it made me so angry that I would have been quite happy to have a demon inside me, one that I could have let loose on whoever had made her react like that. 

My beautiful Bridget. She would always be beautiful to me, even if she was covered in scales, horns and slime. 

"I love _you_," I said a little too sharply. "Not what you look like." 

We looked at each other in surprise, and then I laughed. "That wasn't so hard, was it? I mean it, Bridget." 

But she didn't look convinced. 

Not sure how to persuade her, I reached out one hand to gently brush the scars. "See," I insisted. "I don't care..." But that was when my fingertips tried to give me a message and I found myself trailing into silence. I pushed her hair back and took a closer look. 

"Bridget," I said carefully, not quite believing what I was going to say. "Bridget, these are vampire bites." 

She jerked her head back and stared at me. "You know about vampires?" 

I decided this probably wasn't the best moment to admit I worked with one, even if he did have a soul, so I just nodded. I couldn't imagine how she had survived an attack that had left scars as extensive as the ones she carried. But I was going to be sharpening my stakes and if any of the vamps that had done it weren't already dust, I was doing to make damn sure they were as soon as possible. 

"What happened?" I asked her. 

She shrugged, and for the first time I saw that movement as what it was, a well-ingrained defense mechanism. "He... it... he was after my father. I was just in the way. I was eight." 

"How...?" 

She smiled, almost bitterly. "How come I'm still alive? I was lucky. He was distracted by Pa. When Mam came home I was still alive. So here I am. Still going strong." But there was a quaver in her words that belied their confidence. 

I took what seemed to be the only sensible course of action. I pulled her into my arms and just held her, trying to make her feel safe and wondering how I was going to find the right vampires to kill after twenty years. 

It was a good twenty minutes before Bridget finally raised her head from my chest. One of my feet had fallen asleep and was now waking up again, giving me a bad case of pins and needles, but so far I had managed to survive the returning blood flow without succumbing to the urge to hurl Bridget off my knees and hop around the room swearing. 

I was rewarded by the look on her face when she pulled her hair back and looked up at me. A lot of her innate caution was still there, but there was also a degree of peace I hadn't seen before. Had she been that afraid of telling me she was scarred? Or did it go deeper than that? 

I rather suspected the latter. After all, there aren't a lot of places survivors of a vampire attack can go for counselling. Most people don't survive at all, and those that do would probably end up swiftly locked in a padded room if they talked about it. 

Perhaps Bridget would do better than I had thought among the Hyperion Hotel Irregulars. I would have to introduce her after all, but not right now. Tomorrow would be soon enough. 

"Feeling better?" I asked. 

She nodded. "Sorry." 

"Whatever for?" 

She looked surprised. After a moment, a tiny chuckle escaped. "I don't know," she admitted. "For falling apart I guess." 

"You're entitled," I assured her. 

"So I guess you don't have any dark and secret traumas to share, just to let me return the favour?" 

It was a joke. She knew it was a joke and I knew it was a joke, but to my amazement I found myself pulling the creased telegram out of my jacket pocket and handing it to her in silence. 

She took it, her expression carefully blank. "I was kidding," she said slowly. 

"I know," I agreed, not surprised to hear my voice falter. "But I just got that today, and maybe I need someone else to know about it after all." I tried to sound insouciant, and failed miserably. "I was going to just throw it away, but something made me keep it." 

Bridget unfolded the page slowly. Half of me wanted to snatch it out of her hands and rip it to shreds the other half of me wanted her to read it and understand. Understand what, I wasn't quite sure. 

And it made me angry that eight words from my father's solicitor could leave me this confused and twisted up inside when I had survived Sunnydale, survived Faith, survived Angel's flirtation with insanity this last year and almost getting marooned in a demon dimension. 

Eight words, that Bridget was reading aloud in disbelief. 

"Father died yesterday. Arrangements underway. Don't come. Mortimer." She was silent for a moment, then she exploded. "Bloody hell! Who the fuck is Mortimer and where does he get off?" 

Sitting there on the bed, her evening dress pooled around her legs and her hair falling loosely over her shoulders, she looked like an angel. An angry, avenging angel with eyes that could spit sparks. All she needed was a fiery sword and Mortimer was toast. It was the kind of fate I had imagined for him as a child and then drowned in self-guilt for days afterwards for thinking such things. 

"The Voice of God," I answered. "Or at least, that's how I thought of him when I was a child. He's my father's solicitor." 

"He could try being a bit more solicitous then," Bridget muttered, still rereading the telegram. She looked up at me suddenly. "So who's God?" 

I was silent for a long moment. "My father," I finally admitted slowly. "The Old Testament, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth kind of God. Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. You will be judged according to My will." 

I was surprised by the expression that crossed Bridget's face. "That sounds like something _my_ father would have said." Her face grew reflective. "Although he rather had a liking for _Proverbs_. The most common quotation that roared through the house was probably the one about how a foolish son brings grief to his father and bitter regrets to his mother; that and about how a father who spares the rod hates his son, but one who chastens him loves him." Her head dropped and she stared at her hands. "Mam and I used to keep away when Pa started shouting." 

I winced, quite unable to help myself. "I'm glad Father didn't know those. If I'd had that thrown at me all the time, I don't know what I would have done." 

Bridget looked back up at me and her face grew haunted. "Well, yes," she agreed in a tight, ironic voice. "It did prove to have painful consequences." She shook her head, and resettled herself on the bed, as if that could shake away whatever it was she was thinking about. "I take it you didn't get on with you father, Wesley?" 

"I never had a chance to try," I said, and I was surprised to realise that that hurt as much as anything else ever had, I'd just never realised it before. "He wasn't interested. I wasn't Walter." 

She didn't have to ask. The question was right there in her eyes, and even if it hadn't been, after being silent for all those years, I found I was finally ready to speak. 

"He was my brother," I said softly. "He was four years older than me and he was Father's pride and joy. I worshipped him, the way only a younger sibling can." 

"What happened?" Her voice was quiet, and strangely sympathetic. 

"He died," I said simply, and for a moment I was back in the lake, feeling the water closing over me and the weeds dragging me down as if they were alive and hungry. So very, very hungry... 

"I was eight, he was twelve. We knew we weren't supposed to take the boat out on the lake without an adult there, but we thought we knew better. We thought we could go out and get back again before anyone ever knew." 

I could feel the winter sunshine on my face again, the soft grass under my feet as I pulled off my shoes and socks. Walter was already barefoot, his trousers rolled up to his knees. We squelched across the dewy morning grass and managed between us to manhandle the rowboat into the water. 

"Everything was fine, until I lost my grip on the oar." I had to swallow around the lump in my throat before I could continue. "I tried to get it back and I fell in the lake. Walter can't have thought about it; he must have just jumped straight in after me." 

Bridget laid a gentle hand on my wrist, but I barely felt it. I was caught under the water again, panicking, forgetting anything I had ever learned about how to swim. My feet were sinking into the muddy lake bed, the touch of a fish brushing against my bare leg scaring me so much I screamed. I swallowed a mouthful of muddy, algae-filled water and choked, certain I was going to die. 

And then Walter was there, grabbing my arm and dragging me back towards the surface. 

I shook my head, not sure quite what it was I was trying to deny. "I don't remember much after that," I said quietly. "I think he must have lost his grip on me a couple of times, because I can sort of remember being under the water again, but I might have got everything mixed up." 

I didn't want to tell Bridget the rest of the story. I just wanted to skip to the end, to the important part. 

Walter died. 

It was my fault. 

But something made me keep talking, despite the old, old voice in my head, yelling at me to stop. 

"I found out later that he pulled me out of the lake and carried me back to the house. He must have been as wet and dripping and covered in muddy water and slime as I was, but he wouldn't let anyone look after him until they had seen to me." 

I looked up at Bridget, surprised to find her looking blurrily back at me. I raised a hand to my face and found myself brushing away tears I hadn't known I was crying. 

"I got a cold. Walter got pneumonia. And he died." 

I could hear my voice getting more and more clipped with each word, but I couldn't help myself. 

"At the funeral, after we had buried him, Father announced in front of everyone that it was my fault and that I wasn't his son anymore." 

I heard Bridget's sharp intake of breath, but I had to keep talking or I would never finish. 

"He didn't speak to me for five years. And he stopped Mother from talking to me whenever he could. I got instructions through the servants and lectures from Mortimer." 

"The Voice of God," Bridget said in understanding. This time I looked up at her, at the anger in her face that belied the gentle sympathy in her voice, and for no sensible reason, I found myself laughing. 

"Exactly. The Voice of God. Coming down from the mountain. Chiding the errant and disappointing son for his failings. Speaking in God's name, bringing punishment and discipline." 

"Probably got off on it," Bridget muttered. "Bullies usually do." 

The hysteria vanished as suddenly as it had come. I had always thought of Mortimer as huge and powerful and frightening. "He was a bully," I said in wonder, unable to believe I'd never worked that out for myself before this. "He was a short, ugly, humourless man with an inflated sense of his own self-importance. And he made my childhood hell." For the first time in my life, I felt something flicker inside me, some small fire I hadn't know I possessed. "The sodding bastard." 

I looked up and just caught a glimpse of the smile Bridget was trying to hide. "What?" 

"Nothing," she insisted, then added, "I love you, Wesley," which, wonderful as it was to hear, made no sense at all. 

I opened my mouth, not sure what I was going to say, and she put a finger to my lips. "I do, you know. And you are strong. You were strong to survive such treatment and you're strong now, even to be telling me about it." She removed her finger and smiled at me. "And there's nothing wrong with being angry about it. You're allowed to be." The smile turned inward. "It took me a lot of years to work that out myself. We're the victims and we're allowed to be angry about it." 

I raised my own hand, brushing my fingers lightly across the scars on her neck. "It's different. You were attacked my monsters. I killed my big brother." 

She slapped my hand away, suddenly furious. "Of course you bloody well did not," she snapped. "It was a fucking accident and your father was a bastard and I'm delighted he's dead." She swallowed, taking a deep, shuddering breath. "I'm sorry, Wesley. I had no right to say that. Just don't let him haunt you now he's dead. Leave him behind to rot." 

She shook her head. "How could a father stop speaking to his son? Even Pa never did that." 

I didn't understand what she meant, and I couldn't answer the question. I'd tried before, and I'd never found an answer. 

"He did start talking to me again," I said instead. "When I was thirteen he finally realised that I was all he had. The Wyndham-Pryces had always been Watchers and if I was his only option then I was damn well going to be the best Watcher he could make me." 

I thought of my dismal failure in Sunnydale and the diatribes I had received, through Mortimer of course, after I was fired by the Council. "That didn't work out exactly as he intended," I added ironically. 

Bridget was staring at me. "You're a Watcher?" A second later she laughed. "That's how you know about vampires." 

Now, I was staring back at her. "How do you know about Watchers?" 

She shrugged. "My mother told me. She knows all kinds of stuff we mere mortals don't." She obviously saw me opening my mouth again, because she held up one finger, the gesture clearly intended to tell me to be quiet. "I'll explain later." 

I shrugged myself, suddenly wanting to gloss over the rest of it. I wasn't sure if that was for the usual reason, because I didn't want to remember, or if by some miracle, something had changed. It felt like the memories had slipped away from me a little, settling further back in my past, closer to where they belong instead of being a constant, nagging reminder. 

"There's not really anything else to say. It was all pretty much what you'd expect. Wesley, you're going to be a Watcher. So, name me twenty six demons in alphabetical order or you go to bed without supper. Who was Merandoza and why was he important? Wrong answer and you can't go to Billy Thompson's birthday party. Lots of wailing and gnashing of teeth because the wrong son died." 

I was amazed by the bitterness in my voice. Usually I chose not to remember, or thought I had deserved it. Now I was angry, and I remembered what Bridget had said. It was all right to be angry. I was allowed. She had given me permission and it was a wonderful, amazing thing, to be angry. 

Bridget had listened with a growing frown on her face. "When I was a child," she said slowly, "that was called discipline. These days they'd call it abuse." 

"Father called it discipline," I answered, and finally that something finished cracking inside me, breaking away and setting me free. I knew, at last, that I never had to call it 'discipline' myself again. My father had abused me mentally, emotionally, even occasionally physically and... 

"It wasn't your fault," Bridget said gently. "It was never your fault." 

...And none of it had ever been my fault. It hadn't been then, it wasn't now and I sure as hell wasn't going to let a prick like Mortimer try to continue my father's example. 

I looked up at Bridget. "Want to take a trip to England?" I asked. 

She stared at me, not understanding. 

"I have an inheritance and an estate to claim. Do you want to come and help me?" 

She smiled and nodded, and that was when I began to cry. 

My father would have been spinning in his grave, except for the fact they couldn't have had time to bury him yet. 

I didn't care. 

"Wesley?" 

I didn't recognise the voice at first, then it slowly came to me that it was Bridget, softly calling my name. 

My head ached, my eyes felt gritty and sore and I had absolutely no idea where I was. 

It came back to me slowly. We'd been to see _A Midsummer Night's Dream_, then come to the hotel. Where I had proceeded to tell Bridget all about my dysfunctional childhood and then cry my heart out on her shoulder, probably forever ruining her beautiful dress in the process. 

So much for a romantic evening. 

I forced my eyes open and looked at her, feeling embarrassed. 

Bridget, it seemed, had learned to read me like a book. She put a finger to my lips and shook her head. "If you say you're sorry, I'll hit you," she threatened. "You needed that." 

"I…" I didn't know what to say, but Bridget had no intention of letting me say anything at all. She leaned forward, and this time she silenced me with a kiss. 

I'm a scholar, a researcher. I work with words; I can speak half a dozen languages and read a dozen more, most of which the general population is completely aware even exist. Sometimes I forget that it is possible to communicate with complete clarity without any words at all. 

I did what I wanted to do. I buried my hands in the fall of her hair and pulled her even closer, kissing her back. Her mouth opened under mine, the kiss growing deeper and more passionate, and I forgot all about scholarship, remembering only that I was a man, holding a beautiful woman in my arms. 

I brushed my fingers across the scars she bore, and her arms slid around my neck, pulling me down to lie with her on the huge bed. Her head came to rest on a pillow and she let it fall back. It was a surrender; an offering of herself. Thousands, maybe millions, of years of alpha male programming kicked in and I accepted that surrender, covering her body with mine, kissing her with a rising passion. 

The black dress slipped over her skin with ease. I pushed it up over her knees, her hips, her smooth sides and the swell of her breasts. She raised her arms above her head and let me slip it off her completely. I tossed it unceremoniously to the floor seeing only her, clad now in no mare than a matching set of black bra and panties and the sexiest of black silk stockings, held up with what must be every male's favourite fantasy; a garter belt. 

I took my time, kissing her and teasing her as I undressed her, until she was naked on the bed, her face flushed and her eyes bright, as hot and ready and aching as I was. 

She pushed at my jacket and I shrugged out of it and tossed it aside to fall in a heap on the carpet, half covering her now-forgotten dress. With it gone, she grabbed my shirt and pulled me closer, fumbling with my tie. I was beyond seduction, beyond taking my time. I stripped in seconds, Bridget watching me all while with an almost wild, anticipatory look in her eyes. And then we were lying together, skin to skin, and it felt like my senses had already passed overload into something that didn't have a name. 

I kissed her again, just as she whispered something that was lost in my mouth as my lips devoured hers. 

I pulled back, panting a little, and saw she was smiling. 

"Come home, Wesley," she whispered in the voice of a siren. "Come home in me." 

I was already long lost, trapped into her spell, and I couldn't have left that bed if my life depended on it. Instead, there was salvation here and I didn't need a second invitation. 

I stretched on top of her, pushed my way inside her, exulting in the feeling as her flesh accepted and welcomed mine, coming home indeed. 

She matched me, stroke for stroke, movement for movement, the lover of my dreams that I had never imagined could possibly be real, and we forgot all our pains and our scars in the passion and the pleasure of each other. 

Finding a sense of peace and belonging I had never known before as her muscles clenched around me, I came in an explosion that shattered me into a million pieces, leaving me drained and different, reformed into a Wesley who wasn't quite the same as the one who had started the day. 

Bridget was smiling, tears on her cheeks, and she kissed me lightly and rolled over so that we were spooned together, her back pressing against my chest. I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her closer and felt as much as heard her soft sigh of pleasure. 

That was how we fell asleep. 

I woke up alone. 

There was nothing unusual in that and at first I didn't realise anything was wrong. 

Until it registered that I was naked, lying in a bed that was probably bigger than the entire bedroom in my little flat, and most importantly, for a change I wasn't _supposed_ to be alone. 

Bridget. 

Where was Bridget? 

I called her name softly but there was no answer, just the sound of my own voice. I stumbled out of bed and immediately managed to trip over the pile of clothes on the floor. I staggered, swore, and regained my balance, if not my dignity. 

A part of me hoped Bridget would appear and laugh at me, stumbling around the hotel room in the all-together, but she didn't. There was just me and the empty room. 

I fished my underwear and trousers out of the pile and slipped them on, hoping some clothing would make me feel a little more in control of the situation. It didn't work particularly well, but I kept dressing anyway. 

I was reaching for my shirt when I realised Bridget's dress was gone. Her stockings still lay where I had thrown them, her shoes where they had fallen when she kicked them off last night. Her coat was still tossed over the back of a chair, her purse lying on top of it. But her dress, her bra, her panties, they were gone. 

The pearl choker was still lying on the carpet, and I picked it up slowly, turning it over in my hands. It was only then that I realised it was real. Every pearl, every precious stone was real. I was holding a fortune in my hands, and all I wanted was Bridget. 

That was when I started to panic. I checked the bathroom, but it was empty and unused. I did silly things like looking in the antique wardrobe and getting down on my knees to peer under the bed. I called the front desk, but no-one had seen her. I called the dining room, and was assured there was no woman there in a black dress and bare feet. 

Bridget was gone. 

She had told me she loved me; she had shared her pains with me and held me while I cried over mine; we had made love with a depth and passion I believed could only come with a true meeting of souls. 

And now she was gone. She had got up in the middle of the night and left me. I couldn't understand why, but it felt like my heart was shattering and breaking. 

I called the desk again and got the same answer. This time the clerk added that the room had been paid for in advance all I had to do was leave the key and walk out. 

I rang Bridget's home and got her voice on the answering machine. Afraid she might be there, refusing to answer, I didn't leave a message. I tried ringing my flat, but the phone just rang and rang until I hung up again. 

I was running out of ideas. I collected my things and hers and left the hotel. The car was still there, smartly brought around by a boy in a valet uniform who didn't even look old enough to drive. That meant she had walked, and I hated to think something might have happened to her on the street of LA in the dark hours of night. 

I knew the horrors that walked the night and I had to force myself to remember that she did too. 

I was lost, out of ideas. I didn't know what else to do. So I went to work. Work was, after all, a detective agency. 

The lobby at the Hyperion was empty when I arrived, but I could hear voices coming from one of the side rooms we used as an office when a more private consultation seemed appropriate. Pleased that Cordelia must have arrived early for once, I picked up my pace as I crossed the marble floor. If she was here and Angel was still awake, we could start working on my missing person problem immediately. 

I reached the open door and stopped. 

Bridget was there, sitting cross-legged on the desk, exactly as she had done on the big bed last night. Her black dress pooled about her in just the same way and her bare feet peeped out from under the chiffon. 

It was clear she had been crying, but she was smiling now and as I watched, frozen, she laughed softly. "You do realise you can be one sick fuck when you try, don't you?" 

She leaned forward and lightly kissed the man across the desk from her. "I love you." 

And it was Angel who replied. Replied in a voice that was shaking, and the words were exactly the same. Raw, bleeding and totally honest. "I love you." 

I didn't wait to hear any more. I _couldn't_ wait to hear any more. I turned, strangely blinded, and stumbled out of the room. I must have made a noise, because I heard Bridget call something after me, but I ignored her. I kept going, kept running, out into the sunlight where Angel couldn't follow me and I hoped Bridget wouldn't try. 

Of course she tried. 

Bridget caught up with me in a side alley a couple of blocks away from the Hyperion. I was leaning back against the grimy brick wall of a Korean restaurant, trying to ignore equally the pain in my side and the pain in my heart. 

She was still barefoot, in her black evening gown. Her hair was still loose, wild after her run to catch me, and for once she had made no attempt to use it to hide the scars on her neck. 

She stopped, a pace away from me, and took a deep breath. But when she opened her mouth to speak I beat her to it, and I was startled by just how angry my voice was. 

"So what was I? Some quick fuck before you went after my boss?" 

She blinked at me. "He said you were _his_ boss." 

I spluttered, speechless at her lack of denial, and her face grew angry. 

"For God's sake, Wesley. Stop selling yourself so damn short." 

"I don't…" I began, too startled by that to immediately pursue the ramifications of her kissing Angel. 

"You do," she insisted. "You have this massive and totally inappropriate inferiority complex. I told you last night; you're a strong, wonderful and amazing man and it's time you realised that for yourself." 

"Sure," I agreed bitterly. "You told me that before you snuck out of bed with me to go and play lovey-dovey with Angel." I reached across the space between us and cupped my hand around her neck, my fingers pressing against her marred skin. "He's a bloody vampire, Bridget. You do remember vampires, don't you?" 

"I know he's a fucking vampire!" she shouted at me, and something in her voice, something I didn't understand at all, shut me up completely. I stared at her, suddenly calm again, and tried to understand what it was I had just heard. 

"I know," she repeated in a quieter voice. She took a long, deep breath. "Wesley, it was you. You're the one who gave me the strength to go out and face my own personal demon." 

This time she was the one to raise a hand and trace the bite marks on her neck. "Of course I know he's a vampire," she said softly. "He's the one who did this. He's my big brother." 

My knees decided to give out at that point. I slid bonelessly down the wall to sit amid the trash and stared up at her, totally speechless. 

She laughed, the sound sharply ironic, and dropped to her knees beside me, careless of what the dirt did to her dress. 

"How…? What…? I…" I tried, but nothing coherent would come out. 

Bridget gently laid a finger across my lips and shook her head. "Shh, Wesley. Just let me talk." 

"Uh…" Finally, I managed to nod, still wondering if I had crossed into some alternate dimension, more familiar looking and yet much, much more bizarre than Pylea could ever be. 

She had insisted I allow her to talk, but it took Bridget several long moments to start. Finally, she looked up at me and smiled, just slightly. "It's hard telling a secret you've been keeping for a long time, isn't it? I've been keeping this one for about two hundred and fifty years and it's harder than I expected." 

I couldn't help myself. "You're two hundred and fifty years old?" I asked in disbelief. She looked about a tenth of that. 

She smiled again, the expression warmer this time. "I was born in 1749, so technically I guess I'm.." She paused to do the calculations and I answered for her. 

"Two hundred and fifty-two." 

Now, she laughed for a moment. "It sounds so _old_ when you say it like that. Yes, I'm two hundred and fifty-two years old." She paused and then gave me a wicked look. "On my next birthday which is two months away. And if you ever talk to me about cradle-robbing or bring up my elderly status, you are in _big_ trouble, love." 

The last word warmed me, even as it almost passed me by. I was too busy trying to comprehend what she was telling me. 

"How…?" I asked slowly. "What are you? You're not a vampire." It was my turn to smile a little. "I know that for certain." I had felt her heart pounding against my chest last night. Whatever she was, it wasn't a vampire. 

She was shaking her head. "I'm half Sidhe," she said simply. "My mother, _our_ mother is one of the Sidhe." 

"Which is why you asked me last night if I believed in faeries. You _are_ one." 

"Only half," she corrected me. "Pa was human, mortal. And a total ass," added after a moment. "I don't understand why Mam married him, let alone had half-blood children with him. I never did." 

I thought of the prophecies we had discovered and wondered if some cruel and indifferent Fate had brought us here, brought Bridget and her brother into existence simply to ensure there would be a vampire with a soul, there to fight as the End of Days came. 

And if that was true, what the hell had happened to free will? 

"You're taking this very well," Bridget said suddenly. 

"I am, aren't I?" I agreed in a bemused voice. "I can't imagine why." And I meant it. I believed her; something inside me knew she was telling the truth and it was like puzzle pieces were falling into place around me, making a picture I never, ever would have imagined to see, but one that fitted together with undeniable accuracy and a sense of correctness. 

Maybe I'd have hysterics later. 

"I love you, Wesley," she said quietly. "Thank you." 

My mind went back to what I had overheard in the office. "You told Angel you loved him." 

"I do," she agreed. "I adored my big brother. How did you put it? I worshipped him, like only a younger sibling can. That's how it was." For a second her fingers clenched in her lap, then they relaxed again to lie quietly against her thighs. "I've been afraid of the monster that tried to kill me, that tore out my father's throat while that horrible woman laughed. I've been afraid of him for two and a half centuries. But I loved Liam. I knew about the curse, the soul. Mam told me. She's been keeping an eye on him ever since. But I couldn't face him until now." 

She reached out and took my hands in hers. "You gave me the strength to go and face him… to tell him that I love him. Despite everything, I love _him_. Not the monster, but him. I couldn't have done that without you. Thank you, Wesley." 

The anger, already much faded, just melted away with her words. Maybe it would come back later, and if it did we'd deal with it, but for now, it didn't matter at all. I pulled her into my arms and she sat on my lap and leaned her head against my chest. 

"I'm sorry," she said quietly. "I didn't mean to hurt you. I didn't know you worked with him until he told me. He's proud of you, you know. He said so, and then looked all embarrassed for saying it." She chuckled quietly. "I guess some things never change." 

"Did he know you were still alive?" I asked curiously. 

Bridget shook her head. "He didn't recognise me at all. The last time he saw me I was eight years old and he thought I was dead. I'd never even considered that before. That he wouldn't even know it was me when he saw me again." 

She looked up at me and chuckled. "He thought I was a client and I couldn't resist the temptation, so I pretended I was. When he asked for my name I told him it was Kathy O'Connor and he fell off his chair. Literally." The chuckle was gone as she finished softly, "Then we talked. Really talked, and it was good." 

"Kathy?" I asked. 

"Kathleen Bridget Kelly O'Connor, that's me," she said with a grin that faded as she continued. "Afterwards, after Mam had taken me home under the Hill and healed me, when I was grown up and ready to face the mortal world again, I didn't want to be Kathy any more. So we decided to make me Bridget. I've been Bridget ever since." 

"So I should stick with Bridget, then?" I asked and she nodded. I couldn't resist the sudden temptation and added, "You know, Kathleen Bridget Kelly O'Connor is about on par with Wesley Alexander Wyndham-Pryce when it comes to long and useless names. How about we go with Mr and Mrs Smith instead." 

She began to laugh, her body shaking against mine. Then she stopped suddenly and pulled back to stare at me. "Wesley Alexander Wyndham-Pryce, did you just propose to me?" 

I had been joking, so I was even more startled than she was to hear myself say, "I think I did." 

Her expression grew stricken. "Wesley, I think maybe I'd like to get to that, but I'm not ready yet." 

"Neither am I," I agreed slowly. "But I think it's a goal I'd like to work towards. Being ready to ask you I mean. Maybe we can consider it a portent for the future and leave it at that." 

She nodded, and settled back against me. "I'd like that. Working towards asking. Maybe I'll ask you first." 

I smiled, feeling strangely content. "What a modern, liberated woman you are," I said and she laughed as I intended her too… a laugh that was cut off as I kissed her. 

As we broke apart again, I added with a wicked grin, "Besides, I don't think I'm quite ready to tell my friend the vampire I'm shagging his baby sister." 

"He knows," Bridget said. 

I stared at her, stunned. None of my jokes were working out very well this morning. They all kept on turning out to be true. 

"What?" I gasped. 

"He could smell it. Your scent on me. He thought I'd come to _Angel Investigations_ with a problem because you'd told me where you worked." 

I wasn't sure I liked the sound of that. Every time I slept with my girlfriend her big brother and his vampire nose were going to know. Clearly, I was going to have to talk to him after all. And soon. Bridget certainly wasn't going to be my secret for much longer. 

I wondered what Cordy would say when she found out I was dating Angel's little sister who was two hundred and fifty-two years old. Probably, she'd mostly be jealous Bridget had such good skin at that age. 

Which brought me to another question. 

"If you're half Sidhe, does that mean Angel is too? He's never mentioned anything." 

Bridget shrugged. "I don't know. All the rules changed when that bitch-woman turned him. Maybe that's why he could be given the soul in the first place, because of what Mam is. Gypsies have always known about the Sidhe. Maybe they knew they could curse him because of it." 

"Maybe," I agreed and realised it didn't matter. Not now, anyway. It was a puzzle for later. Because I knew it was one the scholar in me wasn't going to be able to leave unsolved. 

"Are we okay?" Bridget asked quietly and it was only then I remembered we'd started out this conversation shouting at each other. 

"We're okay," I agreed, cuddling her as closely as is possible when one is sitting in a dirty alleyway with one's lover seated awkwardly on one's knee. 

A predicament she seemed to realise existed at the same time I did. She stood up, straightened her now dirt-covered dress and held out one hand to me. 

"Come, lover. Come and be properly introduced to my big brother." 

I smiled and nodded and took her hand, and together we walked back towards the Hyperion Hotel. 


End file.
